Radiating Fire
by Brawl499
Summary: A oneshot I did a few weeks back in the span of a couple days for a contest on the Epic Games Forums. The requirements were to provide an "origin" for the Epic Reaper, and I figured why not show it?


Radiating Fire, a reaper origin oneshot.

"Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself."-William Shakespeare

What Happened? That's the only question Pandit, a Kantus Priest could think of at the moment. The last thing he remembers is preparing to execute one of those humans in the black armor, then something hit them. First came a roaring noise that put even the loudest Brumak to shame, followed by a blinding light coupled with a searing, fiery pain. Feeling off, Pandit opened his eyes to a sight that made him wonder if he was even in the same place. There were corpses everywhere, both human and locust. The sky was hardly visible, a thick cloud of ash and debris hindering vision beyond a couple feet. Karn and his mount were also not in sight.

Sitting up, Pandit noticed that, strangely, he didn't feel fatigued at all. And he felt lighter, as if he could almost float. Looking down at his hands, he noticed that his fingers were longer, thinner, and were completely covered in fresh blood, which actually trailed past his hands, going up both of his arms.

"What happened to me?" Pandit asked in an unusually deep voice, noticing that his forearms were actually missing skin, with part of the bone faintly visible, yet he felt no pain from it. Wanting to see what he really looked like, Pandit reached for some nearby shards of glass and collected them into a pile, forming a rough reflection. What he saw next was probably the scariest thing any living thing on Sera could dream of.

His head was mutated, shaped more like a human skull with a thin layer of tanned flesh on it. His eyes were also black, heartless pits, making Pandit wonder how he was capable of seeing. His mouth looked sewn together, with thin, vertical strips of flesh connecting his upper and lower jaws. Coming to his senses more, he also noticed that his breaths sounded like deep, guttural growls. Attempting to move his legs, Pandit was surprised not only by the fact that his legs appeared to be gone, but also that his attempt to stand resulted in what was left of him floating upwards until he was positioned at roughly human height. Getting as general of a bearing as a Kantus can on flight, Pandit started to drift around, searching the area for any possible indicators as to what happened. Drifting aimlessly, Pandit stopped when he noticed a human that was still alive. Floating over to her, he stopped just behind the human, one of those black-armored soldiers, who was crawling away.

"Wh-what the. The hell are you?" The human asked after rolling onto her back. Now shuffling backwards, the human struggled to unholster a pistol, clutching what appeared to be a stomach wound with her other hand. Noticing a Butcher's cleaver on the ground, Pandit ignored the human for a moment, reaching down to pick up the cleaver. Either Pandit was in an alternate dimension where butcher cleavers were lightweight, or he was immensely stronger, able to hold the cleaver effectively with one hand like it was a short sword. Inspecting the cleaver, Pandit was surprised when the human successfully unholstered her pistol and fired a round, hitting Pandit in the shoulder. Letting out a high-pitched shriek, Pandit instinctively threw the cleaver at the human, watching as it flew with such force that it went right through her, splitting the human vertically in half.

Surprised, Pandit drifted over to the human's corpse, realizing that he did in fact split the human in half with no issue. About to turn around and keep searching, Pandit stopped when a faint glitter in the dirt in between the split human's two halves caught his eye. Reaching down, Pandit grabbed the glittery object and pulled it out, revealing itself to be a faded, dark blue book with a shiny silver material lining its edges. Wiping off the dirt and grime from one side, Pandit was surprised to find that he actually understood what it said, previously being unable to read human writing.

"Legends of the Reaper." Was written in large text near the top, with the subtext "The legacy of Lucretius Tyrus and the Tyran Royal Family" written below that. Flipping open the book and flicking to a random page, Pandit saw a drawing of a human in ornate armor, with what appeared to be two large, quarter gear pieces mounted onto the back of the chestplate. The man was sitting in a black throne that had skulls lining the edges, with one skull under the man's boot. Beneath the drawing was, according to the book, an excerpt from an ancient Tyran poem.

"The Reaper on his Onyx Throne. Lucretius on his Black Tyran Throne. The legendary king of death conquers all."

Finding the book to be interesting, Pandit held on to it before continuing his search. Finding nothing of interest, Pandit was about to give up and try to find some of his allies when he came across a turned over glass case. Bending forward to get a good look, Pandit was abruptly interrupted by the sound of a chainsaw revving. Turning around quickly, Pandit, without thinking, immediately brought the book up to meet the charging Onyx Guard, who proceeded to saw the book apart.

"No!" Pandit yelled, realizing what had happened. In a rage, Pandit immediately backhanded the lancer out of the Onyx Guard's hand before swinging with his claws, cutting a large gash in the human's throat. Clinging on to what little life he had left, the Onyx Guard tried to go for his lancer before fully dying, collapsing on a piece of the book. Shoving the Onyx Guard's corpse off of the book, Pandit was both angry and disappointed to find that the book was ruined, with most of the cover and almost all of the pages, except for the drawing he had seen earlier, encrusted in dirt and blood. Taking a look back at the glass case, Pandit was in disbelief to see that, as far as he could tell, that case contained Lucretius' armor. Doing a double take between the casing and the untouched drawing, he could tell that it was in fact the armor of The Reaper, right down to the silver gear and skull design on either side of the chestplate.

Putting away the drawing, Pandit quickly ripped the lock off of the casing and gently opened it. Reaching inside, Pandit gently lifted the chestpiece out, inspecting it. It was definitely the real thing. Holding the chestpiece with one hand, Pandit proceeded to rip off his shredded Kantus armor with the other hand before delicately putting on his newfound armor. It fit like a glove, almost like he had mutated to just the right size to fit in it. Testing his shoulders' range of motion, Pandit looked down to realize something: everything from the waistline down was gone. Beyond his ribcage all that was left was his exposed spinal cord, which was now tanned to match his skin. Looking back at the case, Pandit was pleasantly surprised to find that the other half of Lucretius' armor was in there too.

Pulling the other half of the armor set out of the case, Pandit lifted it up to where his spinal cord ended, almost as if he was putting it on. Letting go, Pandit suddenly felt a jolt as the armor seemed to connect with him, being able to feel through the cloth hanging from the armor, as well as causing the lower half of the armor to float, almost as if it were being worn by invisible legs connected to his spine. Happy with his new armor, Pandit grabbed the small drawing from the book and set off to find other Locust.

Eventually Pandit came across a Locust patrol. Signaling for them to stop, a Kantus that was leading the group cautiously approached, not knowing if Pandit was friendly or some human trick.

"Who, or what, are you?" The Kantus asked. At least Pandit's newfound knowledge of the most common human language, which he found out to be called Tyran, didn't cause him to forget his native language. Pandit was about to answer with his actual name, before getting an idea. Looking down at the drawing he had kept, he saw that the blood on his hands had blotted out most of the page except for one word.

Reaper.


End file.
